world cup thread

[--Pete]

Hi,

But the FIFA World Cup is the biggest sport tournament in the world, . . .

For what it's worth, a couple of quick searches brings up Wiki answers and World's Biggest. Of course, I'm not guaranteeing the veracity, but it seems from those and other online sources anyway that soccer is the consensus.

Indeed. And had that been the claim, I would have accepted it. Partially because I think it is true and partially because it is hard to define and determine. But the claim was specifically about the World Cup, and of that I am not sure, which is why I asked by what metrics it is 'biggest'. One that I think might qualify is international TV audience. Another might be fan expenditures in travel, trinkets, etc. It might top the list in number of countries represented.

But in number of competitors? Not unless you count all the teams that couldn't make the 32. And in number of spectators? The numbers I see are in the high 10s of thousands for World Cup, and in the low 100s of thousands for NASCAR.

So, yeah, soccer probably is the biggest sport in many ways. But the claim about the World Cup isn't that clear.

--Pete